


keep me close

by Iselmyr



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley do not know how to deal with their emotions, Ducks, Extremely Awkward Conversations, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Requited Love, a considerable amount of panic, a stage performance of Les Miserables
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 07:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iselmyr/pseuds/Iselmyr
Summary: Aziraphale was expecting to see a talented but otherwise ordinary performance of Les Misérables with a genderswapped cast. Aziraphale was not expecting who came onstage.Crowley was expecting an ordinary second night show, because Aziraphale always goes to opening nights, and Crowley never performs on them.Except, this once, Aziraphale missed the opening, and came to the second night. Everything else snowballed from there.





	keep me close

**Author's Note:**

> Every musical Crowley is mentioned as having performed in is one I’m a fan of, though I haven’t seen them all live. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Title is from A Little Fall of Rain, because I absolutely could not title this fic out of anything other than that or On My Own.
> 
> Thanks muchly, as ever, to my dearest StormyDaze for encouragement. Also to blythesome for cheerleading, and to Jame for helping me figure out how to _not_ have a 300-word paragraph that no one would have appreciated.
> 
> ETA: Since a few people are noting that they're reading this without knowing Les Mis and are going to look the songs up on youtube, I thought I'd add links to my personal favored recordings, if you want to listen to them for context.  
> [On My Own](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E7f11C2p5E) and [A Little Fall Of Rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvEHK_-Wpio), both from the 10th Anniversary Concert in 1995, featuring the fantastic Lea Salonga as Éponine. (I did try to include enough of the lyrics that it was entirely clear why Aziraphale was having a crisis even if you don't know the musical!)

Crowley has always been, if not scornful, at least openly _teasing_ about Aziraphale’s fondness for musicals. Tauntingly waving a program at him, laughing, with no indication of interest of his own.

So the last thing Aziraphale expects, when he goes to a performance (not West End, one of the many smaller theatres, a black box with a remarkably talented community that he’s been following for decades) of a gender-swapped version of Les Misérables, is to see Crowley there.

And not just in the audience, no. He could have felt him the moment he had stepped into the building, if he’d been paying attention, but he had focused on chatting cheerfully with Liv the usher about how things were going with her girlfriend and her plans for their tenth anniversary the following week, and then he’d been absorbed in the story and in admiring the performances, and then— 

And then adult Éponine steps onto the stage, and the Presence of the demon Crowley slams into Aziraphale with all the subtlety of an oncoming train.

Aziraphale spends Éponine’s first scene staring blankly at the stage and wondering if perhaps his sensory apparatus have malfunctioned. 

_I told you I’d do it, I told you I’d do it!_

Éponine’s scream is piercing and echoes in his head, and he is distinctly uncomfortable with the following _You’ll scream all right_ from a sneering chit in ragged clothes that makes him think of Hastur for reasons he chooses not to consider. He barely remembers to clap after _The Robbery_ ends. _Javert’s Intervention_ and _Stars_ go by mostly unremarked, even though the actresses playing Valjean and Javert are astonishing talents who would already be in the West End or even in moving pictures if they didn’t prefer having a bit more free time.

 _Éponine’s Errand_ confirms once again that it really is Crowley, still singing in a surprisingly beautiful tenor that Aziraphale has never heard before, and presumably wearing some kind of colour contacts, because he’s complained for millennia about not being able to shift his eyes to something that looks human, and the Crowley on stage has no sunglasses and unexceptional blue eyes with round pupils. Aziraphale discovers that he hates them. They look _wrong_ , in Crowley’s face where there should be burning unmistakable gold.

The rest of the act goes by, and when the lights go up for intermission, Aziraphale still hasn’t moved. He wants to race backstage and confront Crowley— he wants to flee the theatre and never return[1]— he wants to conjure a wig and a trenchcoat and pretend he’s someone else— 

He spends the entire intermission wracked with indecision, and then the lights go down, and it would be terribly rude to disturb the other audience members, so he temporarily releases that quandary with a certain amount of relief, at least for the next hour and a half.

The start of _Building the Barricade_ goes by rather normally, and he’s almost getting used to Crowley being on the stage, or at least getting used to pretending that it isn’t Crowley on the stage.

And then _On My Own_ begins.

  


Crowley is center stage, alone, his arms wrapped around himself, gazing upward with an expression of absolute agony, and singing an anguished song of solitude and make believe.

_On my own, pretending he’s beside me…_

Aziraphale wonders, with a desperate brightness, why they chose not to change the pronouns alongside the casting. Perhaps it interfered with the scansion at points, with the longer gendered words. Or the rhyme scheme. That’s probably it.

_And all I see is him and me, forever and forever!_

Aziraphale is not thinking anything at all about the way Crowley’s voice cracked on ‘forever’.

_And I know it’s only in my mind, that I’m talking to myself and not to him. And although I know that he is blind, still I say, there’s a way for us…_

It’s very warm in this theatre. Aziraphale flutters his program at himself with a desperate attempt at casualness.

_Without him, the world around me changes—the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers!_

Aziraphale is very studiously pretending that the rest of the audience is not present, because he feels somehow agonizingly exposed, despite the fact that he is in the dark in a faceless mass of people and Crowley is the one on stage under a spotlight.

_Without me, his world will go on turning—a world that’s full of happiness that I have never known!_

Crowley’s voice breaks on the word known, dripping pain. Aziraphale, with wild desperation, thinks that he never knew the demon had caught on to the acting style of post-Elizabethan theatre.

_I love him, I love him, I love him, but only on my own._

Crowley half sobs the last note and flees the stage. Aziraphale welcomes the appearance of the barricade boys with the most relief he has ever felt at a set change, and makes a concerted effort to focus on what’s happening on the stage and not think. There is dread building in his stomach, and he’s trying not to think about why.

Javert strides across the stage, and the sharp-tongued little girl playing Gavroche reminds Aziraphale of Pepper, which he also elects not to think about, because thinking about Them means thinking about Armageddon means thinking about Crowley, and he’s _not thinking about Crowley_.

There isn’t much good in not thinking about Crowley, though, because Éponine is back on stage and she’s been shot, and watching Crowley lie on the ground covered in fake blood does very uncomfortable things to his insides that Aziraphale is also desperately failing not to think about.

The girl playing Marius has a shock of curly blonde hair (probably permed, he decides wildly, or did that go out of fashion again) and cradles Crowley—Éponine—in her arms tenderly.

 _Shelter me, comfort me_ , Éponine begs, and Aziraphale feels sick. 

_And you will keep me safe, and you will keep me close, I’ll sleep in your embrace at last!_

Aziraphale is desperately trying not to think about embraces, though it’s rather difficult since he can _see_ Marius holding Cro—holding _Éponine_.

_A breath away from where you are— I’ve come home, from so far…_

Something appears to be lodged in Aziraphale’s throat. He swallows several times to no avail. He had thought Crowley’s voice was raw with emotion in _On My Own_ , but apparently he had been mistaken about the maximum possible feeling one could pack into a note. He really— he really hadn’t thought Crowley had it in him. The acting. Excellent acting. Deceiver, presumably, it must go with the territory— he runs out of ways to temporize about it and stares fixedly at Marius’s hair, because it’s easier than looking at Crowley’s face.

 _I will stay with you ‘til you are sleeping_ , sings Marius, and her voice is tender and note perfect, but somehow lacking something compared to the pleading, desperate hope with which Éponine sings _And you will keep me safe, and you will keep me close, and rain will make the flowers…_

Crowley’s head drops back, and Marius bows her head over him. Aziraphale realizes abruptly that he’s shaking, eyes fixed on the sight of Crowley lying limp and still. A part of Aziraphale that he does not wish to acknowledge is screaming at him to jump onto the stage and shove that girl aside, that _he’s_ supposed to be the only one who can touch Crowley, that some inconsequential little human doesn’t have any right to hold him like that. He puts a great deal of effort into pretending that it isn’t there, leaving very little attention left over for anything else.

He’s not sure he actually experiences the next several songs. The image of the blonde head bent over the dark one, wracked with grief felt too late, seems to have burned itself into his eyes. Snatches of music echo in his ears. _There is nothing on earth that we share_ , he distantly hears Javert cry, and Aziraphale does not think about the bandstand and his own cowardice. _I love him_ , weeps Crowley’s voice, and it curdles in Aziraphale’s stomach. Acting, he says to himself. Acting. He repeats the word until it loses all meaning, and somehow doesn’t feel any more convinced thereby.

He’s paying so little attention that Éponine’s appearance in _Valjean’s Death_ is an unpleasant surprise, even though he’s known the score of Les Mis backwards and forwards for decades. Crowley drifts onto the stage behind the willowy young man playing Fantine, looking haunted and ephemeral and untouchable, and the words _Take my hand, I’ll lead you to salvation. Take my love, for love is everlasting,_ feel like they’ve sliced something open inside Aziraphale’s chest. As for _To love another person is to see the face of God,_ Aziraphale attempts to forget that that line exists as soon as he hears it from Crowley’s lips. Éponine remains onstage for the finale, and Aziraphale spends it staring blankly at Crowley, with flashes of memory attacking him. _Go off together_. _Anywhere you want to go. Get in the car._ He is trying very hard to ignore them, but his defensive denial is crumbling faster than he can shore it up, like a sand castle with the tide coming in. Inexorable. There’s something underneath the sand, and the shape of it is starting to be revealed, and he is more terrified of that shape than he was of Armageddon.

After the curtain call, he fully intends to rush out of the lobby and into a taxi and straight home, possibly to get extremely drunk, and pretend this never happened, but one of the ticket takers stops him with a question about how the shop is doing, and then Liv the usher again to beam about how well her girlfriend, who had apparently been playing Marius, did in the performance, and he can’t bring himself to be rude to extricate himself from these people that he really rather likes, and then suddenly the cast are in the lobby, their appearance so abrupt it feels like they manifested into being between blinks, and Aziraphale has against all the odds locked eyes across the crowded room with Crowley, who is still wearing his costume and apparently contacts, making the eye contact feel decidedly unnatural to Aziraphale.

And he wants to run again, but he freezes, because he always freezes, and he stands there like a deer in the headlights as Crowley is swept over to them by dint of Marius— _Cass_ , Liv had told him her name and it was rude not to use it—linking arms with him and dragging him over to talk to her girlfriend.

“Liv!” Cass shouts brightly, even though she’s four feet away, because the lobby of a small theatre after a show is not a quiet place. “Weren’t we smashing? I told you Ant’d knock your socks off, didn’t I?” She fetches up in front of Liv and Aziraphale breathlessly, beaming.

Liv grins back at her. “Socks clear out of the bloody country, more like. I don’t know why you’ll only play swing,” she adds to Crowley, who these people apparently call _Ant_. “You were absolutely brill. Both of you killed it, I cried my eyes out during _A Little Fall of Rain_ , had to fish my glasses cleaning cloth out of my purse so I could actually see the rest of the play.” She appears to suddenly remember that Aziraphale is there and she was talking to him, and turns to loop him into the conversation. “Wasn’t he great, Ez?”

 _Ez_ , Crowley mouths with clear incredulity behind Cass’s back, and Aziraphale pretends he doesn’t see. He can hardly talk, anyway. _Ant_. “The entire production was wonderful, but I expected nothing less. I have never been to a performance here that was less than stellar. I thought I was familiar with all of your usual cast, however?” He draws out the end of the statement into a question, because if he’s going to be trapped in this conversation, he at least wants to know why in Heaven’s name _Crowley is there_.

Cass rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Ant here’s terrible superstitious. Won’t do opening nights, ever. And you usually come to the first show, so I guess your paths just never crossed. One of those things, you know?”

Aziraphale has a terrible feeling that he does, in fact, know, because Crowley has been teasing him about his penchant for opening nights since sometime around the fifteenth century.

“Well, _Ant_ ,” he says, with all the casualness he can muster, because there’s no way he can get away with just ignoring Crowley now, “You did a wonderful job. You’re quite a _divine_ actor.” Crowley flinches, and Aziraphale immediately feels guilty. There was no need for him to needle Crowley like that, especially when he’s clearly incredibly nervous. “I’m sure I don’t know why you’d be afraid of opening nights, with a talent like that.”

“Waaaall, y’nuh ha‘tis,” Crowley says, and the words are so slurred into each other with his defensive nonchalance that they’re barely intelligible. Warning bells start going off inside rarely-used parts of Aziraphale’s brain, and he shoves down an urgent memory of the bandstand and _Wel’n_. “Js’a thin’.”[2] He reaches up to adjust sunglasses that aren’t there and turns the motion into shoving his fingers into his hair instead at the last moment, where they then stick, because it’s solid with hairspray. He grimaces.

Aziraphale is seized with the desperate conviction that he needs to reassure Crowley _immediately_ , or he’s going to flee. “I wish I could have seen you sooner,” he blurts in something of a panic.

Crowley’s hand freezes in the middle of dislodging it from his hair, and he blinks at Aziraphale. “Not your fault,” he says, and Aziraphale’s relief that he’s gone back to intelligible speech is so intense he feels briefly like he’s floating and has to discreetly make sure that he isn’t actually doing so by mistake.

“What other roles have you played?” Aziraphale feels like extending the conversation until they can both acclimate to the fact that it's happening is the best plan, though possibly that wasn't the ideal tack to take, as Crowley looks somewhat wild-eyed—as much as he can without his real eyes, at least. It's a disconcertingly off expression. 

“Well, the last thing we did before this was Cats,” Cass says, once it's obvious that Crowley isn't going to answer, and Aziraphale nods. He had been there for the opening night. “Ant was swing cast for the Rum Tum Tugger in that.” Oh, Lord, Aziraphale can not possibly be expected to cope with picturing Crowley hipthrusting in a spandex bodysuit. “The Mystery Of Edwin Drood before that, and he was swing for John Jasper.” Aziraphale's brain shuts down recollection of the music of that play in panicked self-defense. “He was the Prince and the Wolf in Into The Woods,” Aziraphale feels slightly faint and refuses to think about costuming, “and the Wizard in Wicked, and…” Aziraphale is just not approaching that concept at all. Cass frowns. “God, he's been here years, it's hard to keep track.” She elbows Crowley. “Especially since he won't brag on himself. Oh, he was Frank N Furter last time we did the Rocky Horror Show,” she offers, like that's going to make Aziraphale feel better somehow. Surely Hell had invented fishnet stockings. 

“Wasn't he understudy for Erik in Phantom that time the chandelier caught fire?” Liv puts in helpfully. Aziraphale is not even going to consider anything about that part or its being referred to as _Angel of Music_. He’s not thinking about it, or how anything that plays music near Crowley shifts without him doing anything intentionally. Not at _all_.

Cass brightens. “He was! It all worked out, nothing major damaged, so that was just a very exciting performance.”

Liv purses her lips. “I know there was something else I really loved you in, Ant, what was— oh!” She grins at both Crowley and Aziraphale. “Jesus Christ Superstar, your Judas was _transcendent_.”

“Goodness,” Aziraphale manages. _He’s a carpenter from Galilee, his travel opportunities are limited_ echoes in his head from a distance of two thousand years. Maybe if he says something, they’ll stop telling him things, and he can recover from all the ones he’s already heard. “He sounds like a regular fixture.”

“Been here longer than I have.” Cass is bouncing slightly on her toes and grinning and is quite possibly the most cheerful person Aziraphale has ever met, though actors are often rather off their heads on adrenaline after a performance, so it is perhaps not a fair time to judge such things. “Not hard, I suppose, I'm only twenty-five, and Ant's one of those ages where he won't tell anyone what it is.” She sticks her tongue out at him. “Won't even tell us when his birthday is so we can throw him a nonspecific party.”

“I don't need to be thinking about how many years I've been on Earth,” Crowley says with a facsimile of a grin, his eyes darting over to Aziraphale as if compelled for a moment before fixing back on Cass. He socks her gently in the shoulder, then pantomimes a cane and a bad back, continuing with an affected wavery voice, “You young folk are more concerned with celebrating another year than me.” He’s clearly very familiar with the people here, comfortable with them, and Aziraphale is attempting not to think that he’s jealous. Whether the jealousy would be of Crowley having easy camaraderie with humans or of the actors for spending time with him, he’s also not thinking about.

“You have a very convincing style,” Aziraphale says before he realizes he’s going to say anything, because half of him desperately wants to know where the pain in those songs came from and the other half equally desperately wants to forget they ever happened, and the former has apparently gotten the latter into a headlock.

“I believe in method acting,” Crowley says, turning back to Aziraphale with the kind of wild-eyed cheer that means he’s decided there’s no getting out of what he’s in and he’s decided to dive in headfirst, though it looks decidedly odd with someone else’s eye colour and shape, and Aziraphale has a terrible feeling about this. “I’m very good at linking the emotions of roles with my own experiences, so I can conjure up that believable feeling.”

“You must be blessed with a wide variety of experiences to pull from,” Aziraphale says, then immediately wants to kick himself for both the phrasing and the entire sentiment.

 _“Blessed_ , yeah,” Crowley chokes out, grinning madly. “You could say that. I’ve seen— lots of things, yeah.”

“I suppose _feeling_ things is really the sticking point, for method acting,” Aziraphale says, and he knows he’s being horrible, but he can’t pull back, the conversation has caught them both in its gravity well and they’re speeding for the event horizon with no way to turn around.

“I’m just _brimming_ with feelings,” Crowley says in a voice that could bleach stone, and his eyes are so brilliant Aziraphale is concerned they’re going to start burning through the contacts. Is there a hint of yellow nudging the blue towards green, or is he imagining it? “Have to wear sunglasses so they don’t blind people when I go out.”

“Ah,” says Aziraphale, and then the words keep coming out of his mouth and he can’t stop them. “So you’ve loved someone who didn’t see you, then?”

“For s— for m— for a long damn time, yeah,” Crowley says, even more bright and caustic, visibly choking back any word for a unit of time with a glance at their human audience, but Aziraphale has a terrible unignorable certainty of what they were going to be. _For six thousand years. For millennia_. 

He can’t possibly have been not seeing this for that long. 

…Can he?

Liv and Cass are watching them like it’s a table tennis match, and Cass stage whispers to Liv, “You get the feeling there are about fifteen other layers to this conversation that we’re not getting?”

Crowley shakes himself and softens his grin into something that looks marginally less like it’s about to be in someone else’s throat, and throws his arm around Cass’s shoulders. “Let’s get this crap off our faces and go to the pub, yeah?”

Cass frowns at him, because he’s so distressed even a _human_ can tell, but she apparently decides to grant him the grace of not mentioning it and nods. “Yeah, I could do with my own clothes. And a pint.”

Aziraphale doesn’t want to leave this here, but there is no possible way that continuing this interaction now would improve anything at all. But if he lets Crowley walk away, how far will he go? Knowing where his flat is won’t help if he flees the country. “I think I might go to the park tomorrow,” he blurts, in a truly tragic attempt at subtlety.

Crowley glares at him, then sighs and rolls his eyes. “Hope you remember to take bread for the ducks.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t give them bread,” Liv cuts in, apparently politely ignoring any and all undertones. “It’s bad for them.”

“It is?” Aziraphale is distracted from worrying about what Crowley will do by genuine distress that he might have been hurting ducks for centuries. “What’s better?”

“Regular grains, I think? I’d have to look it up, there’s loads online about it I’m sure.”

“I’ll… look into it,” Aziraphale says faintly, pretending to both himself and everyone else that he doesn’t notice the conflicted, exasperated fondness on Crowley’s face that he is desperately hoping means that Crowley will meet him at the park tomorrow and will not run off to Italy or Russia or Darkest America[3] in the interim. “I’ll just go home and look it up on the computer now.” He leaves the lobby in a hurry that is possible now that the crowd has thinned a bit, and hears Cass ask Liv behind him why he doesn’t have a phone.

  


* * *

  


Aziraphale tries to stand at the water’s edge and feed the ducks, but his legs are trembling, and he ends up giving a Russian consulate an urgently full bladder to free up the nearest bench so he can sit down with some semblance of dignity, rather than falling into a pond.

He hadn’t said any kind of time, so there is no way for Crowley to be late, but Aziraphale gets more and more nervous with every moment that passes. He was fairly sure he had interpreted things correctly at the time, but underneath the sun all his confidence seems weak and frivolous, self-centered and foolish.

He is remarkably good at being self-centered and frivolous, so it’s an easy conclusion to reach. Either way he is, really—for assuming that everything was about him, or for assuming for all these centuries that Crowley… well.

He’s tossing handfuls of fresh peas to the ducks, out of a bag he’s distracted enough not to worry about anyone noticing never empties. It gives him something to do with his hands, and the crowd of waterfowl squabbling in front of him give him something to look at that is not staring down every path looking for a flash of red hair.

He is so focused on this activity that he’s startled when someone sits down next to him, and nearly gives them an urgent appointment across town on sheer instinct before he actually manages to turn and check who it is first.

To his relief and terror, it’s Crowley. His clothes look, if possible, even more rumpled than usual, and his hair is flat and hanging into his face rather than styled into the strange mess he always insists is fashionable. He’s wearing his usual sunglasses rather than the contacts, and Aziraphale is grateful for small mercies. He doesn’t know how to talk to Crowley when he’s wearing someone else’s eyes.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, with less emotion in his voice than Aziraphale has perhaps ever heard before. He’s sprawled on the bench, his head tipped back to look at the sky and entirely away from Aziraphale, and all of Crowley is very carefully on the half of the bench opposite Aziraphale, like there’s an invisible wall dividing them.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and his tongue feels like it’s made of lead. All this time fretting, and he still doesn’t know what he should say. He doesn’t even know what he _wants_ to say. I’m sorry I’ve been a terrible friend for six thousand years? Are you in love with me? I should have said yes in the bandstand? Every time I’ve pushed you away I’ve hated myself for it? I’d Fall today if it was the only way to stay by your side? I have more faith in you than in God? For pity’s sake, Aziraphale, ease in to the conversation, he tells himself firmly. “You have a wonderful singing voice.” He’s not actually sure that qualifies as easing in, but it’s too late now.

“I like music,” Crowley says. He’s quiet, still, empty of the manic energy that usually propels him. Aziraphale wishes he knew why, and is terrified of the answer. “Humans do such wonderful things with it. Tell stories with it. Anything they find, they’ll make it into a story. So much imagination.”

Aziraphale isn’t sure if Crowley is talking to him or to himself, but he answers anyway, turning back to stare at the ducks. “Brimming with it,” he says, and then remembers Crowley saying that last night, and restrains himself from hurling himself into the pond in exasperation at his own idiocy. Six thousand years, how can he possibly be this bad at talking to his best, his _only_ friend? “I’m sorry,” he adds, once he’s sorted himself out enough that he can be trusted not to jump into the pond. “I didn’t mean to…” He sighs, furious with himself. “Well, I never do, do I. I’m very good at not meaning to do anything.” 

Whether this is a comprehensible sentiment to Crowley, Aziraphale has no idea, and he’s not looking at him to find out, or he’s _definitely_ going to end up in the pond. Tell him what you want him to know, Aziraphale, he instructs himself firmly. “I didn’t mean— in the bandstand. I don’t want our side to be over. Ever.” Well, that was coherent, he informs himself with a bitter sarcasm that almost sounds like Crowley. “I know in 1967 I said—” He bites the sentence off in despair and throws the entire bag of peas at the pond, where it is immediately surrounded by something of a gladiator battle of frantic ducks. It only slightly relieves his desire to join it. Maybe he deserves to be mobbed by ducks. Could he possibly be worse at articulating his feelings? 

“I’m a coward,” Aziraphale tries instead. “But I’d like to try… not being a coward.” If possible, that sounded even stupider. He is hopeless. Aziraphale buries his face in his hands. “I am really rather awful at this,” he says, slightly muffled.

There is a long moment of silence, and a faint rustle, and he’s afraid Crowley is getting up and leaving, but a gentle hand covers his before the fear has time to fully develop. “It’s all right, angel,” Crowley says, and his voice is low and quiet but it sounds like him again, not the empty terrifying shell it had been. “I think I might have gotten the idea. I hope.” His voice wobbles a little on the last word, and he swallows audibly. “Look at me?”

“You don’t have those horrible contacts in, do you?” Aziraphale says before he can stop himself, then tries to make sure he’s not just been insulting. “I mean— I like _your_ eyes, it felt so wrong to see someone else’s.”

There’s a long pause, and Crowley’s hand has gone completely still on his. “You like my eyes?” He sounds somewhere between incredulous and desperately insecure.

“Of course I do,” Aziraphale says indignantly. “They’re— they’re the golden apples of the sun, they’re glorious, and they’re _you_.” He drops his hands and turns to Crowley as his speaks, and when his eyes meet Crowley’s, he forgets how to breathe. Crowley’s taken his sunglasses off, as he so rarely does, and Aziraphale is falling into burning gold. 

Crowley catches him before he falls off the bench. “I should put my sunglasses back on,” he mutters, turning away, and Aziraphale makes an abortive grab at his hands to stop him before catching himself. Don’t force him if he’s not comfortable, Aziraphale, he scolds himself.

“Please don’t. I mean— if it would make you more comfortable, you needn’t for my sake, but—” Aziraphale wonders irritably if he is even _capable_ of not being incoherent and at cross purposes with himself around Crowley. “That wasn’t a _negative_ reaction, my dear, I was just overwhelmed by your beauty.”

Crowley goes utterly still again for a long moment, then his head slowly turns back towards Aziraphale. “My _beauty?_ ” His accent is wandering, which means he’s either upset or about to be thoroughly sarcastic, or possibly both.

Aziraphale interrupts before he can start on either. “Yes. You’re— you’ve always been so beautiful, Crowley,” he says helplessly. “There is nothing else on earth I’d rather look at than your face.” Oh, Lord, that might have been slightly too much at once. Now who goes too fast, he snipes at himself. Crowley is staring at him, frozen, like he’s terrified this moment is a dream. Aziraphale reaches out and cups Crowley’s cheek in his hand, trying to impress his emotions into the gesture. If he’s going to embarrass himself and stun Crowley into silence, he might as well do it thoroughly and get it over with. It’s far too late to _not_ be overwhelming about this, clearly. “Dearer to me than melody, than sunlight, than the wind that stirs the trees. I can bear anything, if I may do it at your side, my dear one.”

Aziraphale’s hand on Crowley’s cheek is wet. Crowley is weeping. Aziraphale starts to work himself into a panic again, but before he has the chance Crowley is _moving_ , has pressed his wet face against Aziraphale’s neck and wrapped his arms around him. Aziraphale is still for a moment, startled, but he hurries to wrap his own arms around Crowley in return. The last thing he wants is for Crowley to imagine that this is unwelcome.

His dearest, his demon, his Crowley is shaking, or perhaps he is shaking, or they both are. Crowley is bony and cold and ungainly and Aziraphale has no idea how he’s survived six thousand years without him in his arms. Nothing in Creation has ever felt so right.

They sit like that, Crowley molded against his chest and Aziraphale holding him close, for long minutes before the shaking slowly stops and Crowley shifts back a little and lifts his head. His eyes are red-rimmed, and Aziraphale suspects they would be bloodshot if he had focused down the size of the irises as he usually does, but he’s let them go and instead they’re gold from edge to edge, the pupils wide and dark and open instead of their usual defensive slits. Crowley looks unsure and frightened, and it hurts Aziraphale’s heart, and he can’t help smoothing tears off of Crowley’s cheek with this thumb, tracing his high cheekbones tenderly. Crowley shivers and presses his face into Aziraphale’s hand.

“I think,” Aziraphale says, a little shakily, “That I might like to continue this conversation somewhere with marginally more privacy than the park. Come home with me?” He doesn’t take his eyes from Crowley’s, hoping that this isn’t too much to ask, that he hasn’t just shattered this fragile new (old, older than the stones of London or any word spoken in it, newer than a world with no Armageddon) thing between them.

Crowley smiles, small and hesitant, just as shaky, and nods. “I think I’d like that too. I— Bentley?” 

Aziraphale nods, and can’t resist pressing his lips briefly to Crowley’s forehead. “Yes. Please.”

“Anywhere you want to go,” Crowley whispers, and his eyes are hope and terror, and Aziraphale hates himself for creating that fear.

“Together,” he says, instead of trying to apologize again, and catches Crowley’s hand in his in what he hopes is a reassuring grip.

Crowley clutches at it and takes an unsteady breath, then stands. Aziraphale stands with him, at his side, hand in hand, and does his best to match Crowley’s lurching pace towards the car park. He is unpracticed at it, they do not usually walk so closely side by side, and both of them stumble not infrequently, but it doesn’t matter. Walking under the sun with Crowley’s hand in his matters.

  


* * *

  


They make the drive in silence, both of them too nervous to say anything while Crowley has to focus on the road, though the Bentley makes colour commentary by way of smugly playing Queen songs about love at them. (The transition from _One Year of Love_ to _I Was Born to Love You_ felt particularly cutting.) If Aziraphale didn’t know full well that Crowley had no control over what music his car decided to play, he would think it rather pointed. 

Probably it still is pointed, just not from Crowley. It was in the Bentley he had told Crowley he went too fast in 1967, after all. Perhaps the Bentley has also been sick of Aziraphale’s cowardice. Or, of course, it could be Crowley’s subconscious harassing them both all these years. Difficult to know. The musical effect does extend outside of the Bentley, albeit not with an identical manifestation, but perhaps it rubbed off on Crowley’s automobile through long proximity and the Bentley’s effect also exists independent of the one that trails Crowley’s person? And why didn’t it affect the theatre? It certainly affects the shop, and all vehicles he’s ever witnessed Crowley in.

Considering the sentience level of the vehicle in which he is riding and the bounds of Crowley’s effect on nearby music is distracting enough to carry Aziraphale through most of the ride to the shop, and when they reach Soho he’s beset with a fresh batch of nerves. He wants Crowley here, in his shop, with him, more than anything. 

He is not used to _allowing_ himself things that he wants more than anything.

Armageddon didn’t happen. Heaven and Hell gave up on them. He can do anything he wants. He doesn’t have to forbid himself anymore.

He wants Crowley to never be able to sound like that singing Éponine again. Which is probably a desire inconvenient for the local theatre community, given that they are in the middle of the show’s run, but—

 _Focus_ , Aziraphale. They’re parked and he’s just staring blankly at the windscreen. He can feel Crowley staring nervously at him. “Shall we go inside?” Aziraphale says, attempting to sound casual and quite spectacularly failing. He really had not considered just how much time the drive would give him to work himself into a panic again.

“Anywhere you want to go,” Crowley says, then looks both embarrassed and miserable. 

Aziraphale feels rather miserable being reminded of 1967 himself, but more important than that is making sure this time goes differently. He reaches out a hand to cover one of Crowley’s where it's seized onto the wheel in a white-knuckled grip. “Whatever speed you wish, my dear, as long as you're with me. Right now, I would very much like for us both to go inside.”

Crowley smiles something that is half a grimace of panic at Aziraphale and nods like one of those odd little plastic contraptions Aziraphale has seen on automobile dashboards in America. “I— yes. I would like that. To go inside.” His breathing is starting to get rapid again, and Aziraphale doesn't know what to do to help. 

No, wait, he does. They're parked outside the shop. They won't have to worry about going to fetch the car later. There is absolutely no reason they need to _walk_ into the shop. Before he can think better of it, he snaps the fingers of the hand that is not covering Crowley’s, and suddenly they're in the back room of the shop, side by side on the sofa, with only air separating them, instead of the gearshift and other such automotive trappings. 

Crowley goes very still when they remanifest on the sofa, and Aziraphale curses himself, again. “I'm sorry, I was just thinking that I wanted to save you having to get out and walk, and I should have asked—”

“It’s all right, angel.” Crowley’s voice is still low and rough, but he does sound calmer than in the car. “I was just startled. I appreciate it, actually, I was starting to worry about putting my sunglasses on because there are humans outside—”

Aziraphale catches Crowley’s hands in his without thinking, then internally swears at himself some more. He seems to be doing a lot of things without thinking these last two days. Most of them to Crowley. “I'm glad,” he says, instead of dwelling on it. “I rather like that you trust me more with your eyes.” Oh, God, he said that last bit out loud, didn't he. How did he become such a selfish bastard? “I'm sorry, that was selfish of me,” he says, looking down. 

Crowley frees one of his hands to pull Aziraphale’s chin gently up to look at him, and Aziraphale loses his breath all over again at the things he can see burning in Crowley’s golden eyes. “None of that, now,” he says in a tone that was probably meant to be gentle but is instead somewhere between hoarse and wobbly. “I've wanted nothing more for six thousand years than for you to be possessive of me, angel.” His voice has definitely settled on hoarse now, with a large side of nervous. 

Aziraphale decides that perhaps actions speak louder than words, particularly since he is proving to be quite awful at words, at least in trying to convey the desperate emotions that are surging through his entire being and leaving him feeling hollowed out and filled with light. So instead of speaking again, he surges forward to press his lips against Crowley’s, which are so tantalizingly close. He second-guesses this act almost instantly, of course, but before he can make any decision about that indecision, his path has been made entirely clear, because Crowley has made what is perhaps the most beautiful noise ever to exist in creation, a desperate whimper of pure need, and the hand that was under Aziraphale’s chin is suddenly behind his head, clutching him close, and the hand that Aziraphale had caught in his own is now fisted in the front of his shirt, yanking him closer. 

This was, on currently available evidence, possibly the best decision Aziraphale has made all day, or indeed in the entirety of the duration of linear time. He makes an involuntary breathy noise of his own that he would probably ordinarily find quite embarrassing, except he is far too occupied with moving his hands so they're no longer between him and Crowley and in the way of their bodies pressing together, which somehow turns into his hands being on Crowley’s back, underneath his shirt, clutching him as desperately close as he can. 

Crowley makes another helpless little sound when Aziraphale’s hands reach his skin, and Aziraphale can't resist chasing it back into Crowley’s mouth, his tongue sliding into uncharted territory of which he has never dared to even dream. 

Crowley _keens_ , and Aziraphale suspects he has produced a rather desperate groan himself, because Crowley’s tongue is against his, slick and forked and unfamiliar, and Aziraphale has always loved the pleasures of corporeality, the foods and wines and whiskeys, but nothing he has ever tasted has come anywhere close to comparing to this, to Crowley on his lips, under his hands, the taste on his tongue, the fingers in his hair. 

He has the vague, dizzy thought that he understands why humans will die for love. He could never live without this again, not after knowing the salt-sweet-bitter taste of the demon on his lips, this demon, his demon, his dearest, his Crowley, who has waited for him for so very long. 

Neither of them actually require oxygen, which is convenient in terms of not being forced to break apart to gasp for it, but lacking that forced pause means they go on until they are both too overwhelmed with sensation (repletion, satisfaction, the granting of every spoken and unspoken wish they had harbored in the core of their beings) to continue, and they end up panting anyway, because it turns out to be a rather natural-feeling expression of being thoroughly oversaturated with gratified adoration, and seems to help defuse it a bit. 

Aziraphale is staring at Crowley, even though staring at Crowley mussed and flushed and panting with damp swollen lips is so exquisite as to be almost painful, and he entirely understands why Crowley’s eyes are squeezed shut, his eyelashes trembling dark above his high cheekbones as his chest heaves with breath (or, more accurately, emotion).

“I'd Fall this moment, if that was what it took to stay by your side,” Aziraphale whispers, then realizes with some horror that he actually said that aloud. Crowley is already overwhelmed, this is a terrible time to make dramatic declarations of eternal devotion, regardless of how true they are. 

Crowley’s eyes fly open, wide and astonished and unguarded, and he's shaking, and Aziraphale doesn't know what he should do now. 

“Do— did you mean that? You can't mean that,” Crowley says, his voice shifting from uncertainty to denial as he speaks, and Aziraphale can see something starting to shutter behind his eyes, to lock away hope, so he catches Crowley’s hands in his again. 

“I meant it, and I mean it, and I'm not going to stop meaning it,” he says, because that's the important thing to get across. “I was trying to stop myself from springing it on you without warning but it turns out,” he is aware that his voice is going rather breathy, “that I am really quite terrible at controlling my tongue around you.”

“Didn't feel so bad as all that,” Crowley says weakly, and Aziraphale squeezes his hands and presses his lips to Crowley’s knuckles, because he doesn't know how to convey that Crowley doesn't need to defend himself with a retreat into humour, but he also doesn't want to try and take from Crowley something that makes him feel more secure, even if it hurts Aziraphale’s heart to hear Crowley retreat into defensive sarcasm. Though the compliment to his kissing skills is not unwelcome, he supposes.

“I should perhaps warn you,” Aziraphale says, “that now I have stopped forbidding myself you—which I regretted so much, every time, I have never pushed you away and not despised myself, and please believe that I am sorry—that I find myself significantly lacking in the ability to deny myself further, or indeed evidently to keep everything I’ve fought not to say from sneaking off of my tongue. I am trying not to overwhelm you, I know it isn’t fair to be always at my pace—”

Crowley cuts off Aziraphale’s somewhat incoherent ramble with another kiss, one he initiates this time, and Aziraphale is shocked still for a moment, all thought vanishing from his mind to be replaced with _Crowley_. After a moment (an eternity, an instant), he manages to remember how to manipulate his corporation, and returns the kiss with interest, dropping Crowley’s hands to clutch at him. One hand ends up on the back of Crowley’s neck and the other at the small of his back, and Aziraphale presses himself closer, desperately, leaning closer until they both overbalance and land on the floor, Crowley panting on his back on the rug and Aziraphale staring down at him in wonder.

“I think I might like to continue doing this until somewhere around the end of eternity, if you don’t mind,” he says rather breathlessly.

Crowley laughs, and it’s beautiful, unrestrained and free of bitterness. His eyes are bright and clear and his face is creased with joy for once instead of sorrow. “Only as long as that, angel?” He’s secure enough to tease, and Aziraphale cannot possibly have done anything to deserve a moment this perfect, but he’s never letting go.

“We’ll find a way to build another eternity afterwards, so I can stay with you,” he says. He’s lost in Crowley’s eyes, the gold so bright and clear, the slitted pupils open doors he’s falling into and never wants to leave.

“Much better,” Crowley says, and pulls Aziraphale down to him, and Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s smile against his lips as he loses himself in them again.

* * *

[1] Which would be a terrible pity, because they do a yearly run of _Into The Woods_ with almost _miraculously_ good scenery for a theatre of their scope.  [ return to text ]  
[2] What Crowley is saying, were it to be afforded the privilege of actual enunciation, would be understandable as “Well, you know how it is. Just a thing.”  [ return to text ]  
[3] Aziraphale has been choosing to be English since long before there was a United States of America—he is in fact as English as it is possible for a divine being that predates the existence of England itself to be—and he has a thoroughly cultivated disdain for the _colonies_.  [ return to text ]

**Author's Note:**

> When Aziraphale says 'the golden apples of the sun', he is definitely making a reference to the poem by W. B. Yeats. I, however, have loved Ray Bradbury since I was about 12, and have entirely different reasons for that phrase to be burned into my brain.  
>   
> You can find me on tumblr, if you so desire, at [saints-and-demons-preserve-us](https://saints-and-demons-preserve-us.tumblr.com/). I am always open for yelling about Good Omens, or musicals, or combinations thereof!


End file.
